


Not Alone Here

by Khellamendra



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 02:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khellamendra/pseuds/Khellamendra
Summary: Shiro unintentionally pushes Lance away. Determined to fix it, he finds the perfect opportunity when the paladins receive an odd signal in a supposedly empty section of space.





	Not Alone Here

**Author's Note:**

> This was for a Halloween contest on a Shance Amino. 
> 
> This takes place roughly before the first fight with Zarkon but after meeting the Blades and saving Slav. Hope you enjoy!

Something was up with Lance, Shiro was certain of it. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was but he knew it was there. He could have left it alone but as their leader, Shiro had a sense of duty that couldn’t be ignored. 

Talking had turned out to not be a good tactic. Lance excelled at talking but not just talking, talking in circles. He had a way of stringing thoughts together that Shiro could not follow. What had started as small talk about how things had been going eventually turned into a passionate reenactment of some conversation he had with a girl at the SpaceMall. Shiro was 97% certain it didn’t go even remotely how Lance was playing it out but he couldn’t exactly prove that so he let it go. Eventually Lance remembered he had planned to meet up with Hunk and excused himself, leaving Shiro with so many questions. 

It was Keith who found him looking pensive in the lounge. “What’s with the serious look? Everything alright?”Keith stepped down to sit next to Shiro,who had sat back and crossed his arms. 

“Does it feel like Lance acts differently around me? ” 

“He acts differently with everyone.” Keith pointed out, earning a sigh from Shiro. 

“No, I know that but I guess what I mean is that he seemed to have this particular way he acted around me but somewhere along the way it’s shifted but not in a positive way like all our relationships have. He seems more nervous I guess?” He was getting frustrated trying to put his thoughts into words. There was definitely something and it was enough of something that he was picking up on it. If there was one thing he tried to promote, it was harmony within the group. They all had their ups and downs but in the end they over came it. Apparently it was his turn to do that with Lance though he thought they had already hit that point.

“Well,” Keith started. “Maybe he thinks you don’t really like him that much.You did sort of ignore him when he brought up the whole Halloween idea.” An eye twitched when Shiro gave him a blank look. “You don’t know what I’m talking about do you?” He asked dryly, getting his answer when that sheepish look crossed a scarred face.“Guess that answers that. Okay so ever since we ended up out here Pidge has been keeping track of the date it is on Earth. Makes things feel a little more normal and gives some perspective.” 

“Still being able to celebrate birthdays and holidays together even though we can’t with our loved ones on Earth.” Shiro finished.

“Exactly so apparently Halloween is coming up and the three of them were super excited about it. I don’t think Coran or Allura really get it but you know how they always try to be involved and I think they liked the part about candy? I don’t really know. Anyway everyone was brainstorming ideas and whatever but you didn’t say anything. Actually I take that back, Lance asked how you felt about one of his ideas and your great response was a very distracted ‘Oh yeah that sounds great, Lance’ without your eyes ever leaving the data pad you were reading.” Shiro cringed at that one. 

“I did not!”

“Oh you totally did. That was the last time anyone asked for your opinion.” Keith said with a shrug. That had been a problem with him lately. Shiro knew he had been way to wrapped up in work. The one time the group tried to include him and he had shut them out. Lance had a way of taking things more personal than the others too. “Okay well I definitely made a mistake and I’m going to fix it. Just have to think of how. I’m sure that the perfect time will present itself. For the time being,” He looked Keith sheepishly again. “Can you fill me in on what I missed?”  
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

“Okay so we’re pretty much got this whole thing in the bag,” Lance said. “Hunk is in charge of the food because he is the undisputed master.” 

“Aww thanks Lance. You know I really try to bring out the potential of the food goo while also making sure we don’t get sick of it after however many days we’ve been stuck out here fighting the Galra!”

“Plus that stuff looks freaky at all times so it’ll be perfect for a Halloween party,” Lance continued. “We need to make it super spooky so we can freak out Allura and Coran.” 

“I have a whole drive full of just Halloween sound effects including the Wilhelm scream.” Pidge offered. 

“No collection worth its salt would leave out the Wilhelm scream. It’s a classic!”

“What’s a William scream?” Lance asked, crossing his arms as Hunk and Pidge shared a look. 

“Not William, Wilhelm. It’s only the most used scream effect ever in media and is still used even to this day.” Lance scoffed at Pidge.

“Whatever, I’m not a giant nerd like you two. If it’s that great then we have to use it. Now what about costumes-” The sounds of the alarm cut through the conversation and the three of them groaned. “Guess we’re gonna have to come back to that one. Stupid Galra, always having to get in the way. Hey think we could use that Wilma scream to give us an edge in battle?” 

“Wilh- never mind. We’ll bring it up to Shiro later and see what we can do.” Pidge conceded, resisting the urge to face palm as they headed for the bridge. By the time the three of them walked in, Shiro and Coran were already discussing the information on the screen. “What’s going on?” Pidge asked, looking at it. 

“Coran picked up an odd signal nearby,” Keith said as Coran played with the edges of his mustache. 

“Indeed but I don’t remember there being any planets in this sector. Although,” He paused. “There have been rumors about this particular part of space. It was said that any ship that came out here, would mysteriously disappear. Sometimes the ship would reappear several varga later, other times they were never seen again.” Hesaid ominously. 

“W-what happened to them?” Hunk asked. 

“Oh most likely it was just ion storms, This area is famous for them.”Coran said estactially much to the chagrin of the rest of the group.“It is true about some ships never coming back so you’ll want to be extra careful. The signal is a bit hard to pinpoint but it’s probably just another old beacon that activated when we got within range. There really aren’t any planets around here, not for quite awhile in fact. This is a dead zone.” 

“Not a big fan of that name but this doesn’t sound too hard. I bet me and Blue could be in and out in no time,” Lance said confidently. 

“It’s not a good idea to go alone. We don’t know what to expect and it’s not the first time we’ve been fooled by these.” Shiro interjected. He could see the disappointment starting to form on Lance’s face at another of his ideas being shot down. “But-”Shiro said quickly. “We may need your lion in case it turns out to be a ship or a facility of some kind. Knowing the layout before hand would be a big advantage.” That seemed to be the right answer, as Lance started to get excited again. This seemed like a good opportunity. “Lance and I will see if we can get eyes on whatever is making the signal. The rest of you I need on standby in case we run into trouble and need to form Voltron.” With no objections he put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “You’re in charge until I get back. I’m counting on you.” 

“I’ve got this. Just be careful out there,” Keith said, putting a hand briefly over Shiro’s. He didn’t miss the look that passed over Lance’s face before the boy turned away.  
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

“So this is kind of creepy.” Lance’s voice came through Shiro’s com. He had almost been afraid the Lance wasn’t going to talk to him at all. Even since they had left the castle he had been uncharacteristically quiet. 

“Empty space can be intimidating but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.” Shiro reassured though Lance seemed to disagree, the com picking up the soft noise. “You don’t believe Coran do you? He was just trying to be dramatic.” There was that noise again.

“I’m just saying, you can never be too sure. People always blow off the crazy guy in films and what happens? Nine times out of ten he’s right.” Shiro laughed.

“Well he does fit the bill, I’ll give you that.” 

“No but for real though, something just feels weird.” Shiro watched the blue lion sway back and forth, mimicking the nervous energy of her pilot. He had to admit he did feel a sense of unease for nodiscernible reason. 

“Pidge what information do we have?” shiro asked. 

“Unfortunately not much. The Ivaldi sector is a mostly unmapped system. Like Coran said, it’s plagued by ion storms that make it difficult to get proper readings.” 

“So how do we even know we’re going the right direction to this signal?” Lance asked, not sure if he was going to like the answer. 

“That’s the odd thing. Even though there’s a lot of interference, the signal and its location come through clear. Of course that could be inaccurate but that’s what your mission is for.” 

“Great.Well I don’t see anything,” Lance said. For a place that was supposedly plagued by storms he didn’t see anything. At least not until a blip suddenly came up. “Wait, I think I’m picking something up, straight ahead.” Looking up he had to bring the lion to a sudden stop. “What is this?” 

The black lion came to a stop next blue as Shiro looked up at the large multicolored cloud that was suddenly in their way. “Pidge what are we looking at?”

“Accordingto my readings it looks like a dense collection of cosmic dust. It’s weird though. With our current technology, our scanners should have no problem piercing through it.”

“Is it dangerous?” Shiro asked and he could hear Pidge typing. 

“No but if it’s as dense as it appears, you’d be flying blind for sure and I don’t know for how long or what’s on the other side.”

“According to my scanner the signal isn’t that far in at all so surely it can’t be that bad,” Lance offered. 

“Weren’t you the one that said it felt creepy?” Pidge returned and Lance scoffed. 

“Yeah and the sooner we verify this signal is old, the sooner we can get back to planning. I say we band-aid this.” Before Shiro could even ask what the meant, Lance suddenly kicked his lion into gear and headed straight into the swirling colors. 

“Lance’s wait!” Making a noise of frustration Shiro had no choice but to follow, hearing Keith’s voice in his ear this time. 

“Guess we should have seen that coming. Don’t lose....him. Lance is so...important to...Sh-” Shiro frowned. “Keith can you hear me? Pidge? Anyone? What is going on-Woah!” Shiro suddenly realized why his com had started to mess up. The cosmic dust had been hiding a massive ion storm within it. Gripping the controls, he steadied himself. He had to find Lance and make sure he was okay. All around him the storm raged, putting his skills to the test as he tried to move the large lion safely. Just a head he thought he saw something, heading straight for it on instinct. Shiro felt relief flood through him when he recognized the familiar shape of the blue lion. It was unresponsive, floating, and somehow managing to not be hit more than it obviously already had been. There was nothing around them but this blasted storm. “Lance. Lance do you copy?” Nothing but static came backand he cursed at himself as he rushed to his companions side. 

Looking at his screens, only one seemed to still be working. As the surge hit him and darkness started to taint his vision he realized something.They were at the source of the signal.   
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

“-nce”  
Lance’s body felt more than a little sluggish as he tried to get limbs tor espond.

“-an you hear me?” Someone was definitely trying to talk to him and the voice was familiar but he couldn’t quite place. Groaning, he opened his eyes. Slowly they started to focus, and he realized he was looking up into Shiro’s face, relief obvious. “Thank goodness. You worried me there for a minute.” Looking around, he couldn’t see much through the darkness but they were definitely inside. The blue and black lion were the only light in the room, shields illuminating things but not by much. It took him longer than it should have to realize that Shiro was holding him. He was grateful for the low light to hide the blush as he sat up quickly. “Woah careful, you were out for who knows how long. We both were.” 

“What happened?” Putting a hand to his head, he realized his helmet was off, looking around for it. 

“No idea. I was knocked out and when I woke up I was here, we both were.I couldn’t get my lion to respond and no one seems to be answering the coms. Looks like we’re on our own for the time being. Our best chance is to try and hope there’s a communication station here along with some answers.” Carefully Lance got up, Shiro’s hands right there to keep him steady. 

“Great so we woke up in some unknown, dark, creepy as quiznak place with no way to communicate with anyone and no idea where we actually are. Do I have that right?” Shiro gave him a wry smile.

“Pretty much.”

“Great this is only the plot to half a million horror movies. I was hopingto be sitting on the couch watching them, not living one.” He complained, activating the light on his wrist and shining it around before settling on a door. “Guess we start there?” He asked as his companion activated his as well. 

“Sounds like a plan.” Activating his bayard, Lance brought the familiar blaster up and headed for the only exit they seemed to have. The hallway on the other side wasn’t exactly in the best state of repair and for lack of a better word, was falling apart but lights glowed softly on either side. Lance jumped more than once when something brushed against him only for Shiro to remark that it was just a wire or a piece of debris. Lance felt it was happening far to often for that to bethe case. It was starting to put Shiro on edge and he didn’t like it. “So...what does ‘band-aid this’ mean exactly?” He asked, trying to cut through the tension.

“What?”

“Earlieryou said it right before you decided to charge into the cloud. What does it mean?” Lance shrugged. 

“You know how they tell you it’s best to just rip the band-aid off because it’ll hurt less or be over faster? It’s like that.”Shiro wasn’t sure what he was expecting.

“Oh. That actually makes a lot of sense.” Even though it was something Lance had obviously made up himself. That made it oddly endearing. Starting to feeling a little more at ease, the loud sound of something metallic falling somewhere behind them, startled the both of them. 

“Please tell me we are alone here.” Lance whispered, moving closer to Shiro even as he tried to keep his gun steady. 

“This place is obviously old and abandoned. I’m sure things fall all the time.” Shiro said, trying to reassure the both of them. He almost believed it until the faint sound of scraping filtered through the corridor. Together they slowly backed up, both of them trying to find the source of the noise. Lance was so close that Shiro could feel him trembling as they moved. The boy was starting to panic and that wasn’t agood thing. Placing his hand on a shoulder, that had turned out to bethe wrong choice as Lance screamed and took off. “Lance wait!” He ran after the boy, but Lance was a lot faster than Shiro had expected but he couldn’t let Lance out of his sight. Otherwise he might never find him. As much as he didn’t want to, he had no choice but the tackle the other paladin. 

At least he could say that Lance had some survival instincts since he turned over, ready to shoot but a glowing arm caught it before he could. “Calm down, it’s just me okay. It was me who touched you before, there’s no one else here. Alright? I’m going to get off of you and help you up but I need you to stay calm. Do you understand?” When Lance nodded, Shiro did as he said, noticing the way a hand lingered in his. When Lance realized it too he was quick to take it back. “Come on, let’s keep going.”

The place turned out to be bigger than expected but Shiro had hope. The soft, glow from the hall lights didn’t illuminate near enough but they at least proved the place had power. They cautiously looked in rooms for anything that might be of use, constantly coming up empty. The place had obviously been stripped bare and what remained was broken and too foreign for them to be able to identify. Walking into a large room, their footsteps echoed as they moved. It didn’t take long to realize why. They were in a hollow room, their only way out a door at the other end of a suspended walkway. Lance shown his light over the edge but it couldn’t pierce the darkness. That was probably a very long fall. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself and followed Shiro.

It was fine, almost to the door until he found a loose plate and thought he was about to plunge into the dark depth below, never to be seen again. Shiro was quick to help him before anything could happen but it was enough to get his heart pounding even after they made theire scape through the door. 

“Okay you know what, if we’re going to die then I need to tell you something first.”

“We’re not going to die. Look there’s a console right there. I bet we can use it to at least find some answers,” Shiro said as he started messing with it. 

“Maybe but right now I’m running on a lot of adrenaline and if I don’t say it now I either won’t get the chance or I’ll lose my nerve.” Lance admitted. That was enough to get Shiro to pause in what he was doing to look at Lance. 

“Is this about why you’ve been acting weird around me?” That didn’t seem to be what Lance was expected but he sighed loudly.

“Yeah okay you caught me alright? It’s just you’ve been my hero since forever right and then all of a sudden I went from being this dumb kid that you didn’t know existed to saving the universe with you but that’s the thing. Like I already made peace with all that stuff right?” Shiro opened his mouth to answer but Lance kept going, pacing as he talked. “But then things had to go and get complicated which is totally not fair! I mean I don’t even know when I went from just admiring you to wanting to be with you. How stupid is that? Who else would do that but me? I mean what do I have to offer anyway?Keith is so much better than me.”

“What does Keith have to do with this?” Shiro was trying to wrap his head around what Lance was saying but there was so much to unpack. That wasn’t what he should have been focusing on but Lance didn’t seem to mind. 

“Only everything! You two are so close that it’s not even fair. I would kill to have that but I’m just...” Shiro’s brows furrowed.

“You’re just what Lance?”

“Not good enough alright! I know I’m not and I have no chance but it doesn’t stop the way I feel! It just sucks because I don’t know how to handle it- huh?” His pacing was interrupted by arms wrapping around him, drawing him into a hug. Hands started to come up before he stopped and let them fall to his side again. 

“Is that what’s been bothering you all this time? I am so sorry.” He felt the boy tense in his arms and Shiro realized he was expecting rejection again. He only hugged Lance tighter. “Sorry for not noticing sooner. I’ve been working way to hard lately. I want to win this as soon as possible so that we can all go home but I need to not work so hard that I ignore those around me.” 

“So what are you saying?” Lance asked softly. 

“I’m not completely sure but this is definitely something we need to talk about. It’s not a no by any means, it’s a ‘We’ll take it one step at a time and see how it goes’, okay? And for the record, Keith is like a brother to me. We’ve been through a lot but neither one of us are interested in the other.” He finally felt Lance relax hug him back. 

“That is actually a relief. Sorry I kind of rambled and basically spilled my heart in this creepy abandoned place that might very well be in a hell dimension. Not exactly how I planned to do it but let’s be honest, I had no plan. I was going to keep it to myself for as longas possible.” Shiro chuckled.

“Sounds like you. In the future though, I’d prefer you talk to me. Which we are going to do once we get out of here okay?” 

“Okay!”

Pulling back, he smiled and was pleased to get one in return. It was a bit shy but it was a nice change of pace from what they had been dealing with. Turning his attention back to the console, Lance watched his back while he messed with it. Pidge could have done it in a fractionof the time but they had to go with what they had. “Yes!”

“Find something?” Lance asked, turning back towards him. 

“I think so. Give me a second.” A few more taps and information filled the screen. “It’s...an abandoned Blade base.”

“Blade? Like the scary Galran with the braid? Has a super tall friend with a cool looking tail?” 

“Kolivan and yes like them. Considering their love for security and secrecy, it looks like the storm and that cloud were artificially created. I can guess who was behind that.” Shiro said dryly. There was only one alien he disliked more than Zarkon and that was Slav. “They probably found out that this sector is supposed to be empty which made the perfect place to hide a base.”

“I am incredibly relieved that we are in fact not in a spooky ghost facility but a spooky Blade base. Guess we know what happened to all those ships. That sucks so...how do we get out?” Downloading information from the console Shiro sent it to Lance. Pulling it up, it showed a flight path much like for the main base. “Why must they make things so specific?”

“No idea but I’m ready to put this place behind me if you are.” He said with a small smile. “Think you can handle this sharpshooter?” Lance grinned.

“Well they do also call me the Tailor.” 

```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

Lance was never happier to be back in empty space than when his lion broke through the cloud, followed right behind by the black lion. “Guys is that you? Where have you been, we thought the space curse got you?” Hunk’s frantic voice came through and Lance breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Yeah it’s us and of course we’re fine. You shouldn’t believe Coran’s stories Hunk, he’s just being dramatic.” Shiro had to bite back a laugh at Lance's response 

“You guys just disappeared into that cloud and then we couldn’t reach you. What else was I suppose to think? We were all worried sick!” Hunk continued and Shiro felt bad. 

“Sorry about that but everything is fine now. Keith contact Kolivan and tell him we found an abandoned Blade base that still has power and data. He’ll probably want to send someone to take care of it.”

“I'm on it.”

Bring up Lance on the screen, he switched to a private channel. “The sooner we take care of that, the faster we can talk. I believe we also have a Halloween party to finish planning.” Shiro said, taking note of the surprised look on Lance’s face before it shifted into a big grin.

“I can’t wait.”


End file.
